This summer was supposed to be a comeback season for Fox, which
had a rough summer last year, and Wolverine was supposed
to be its first big hit. But, unfortunately, now the film will
also serve as a practical test of how much piracy can hurt
Hollywood's bottom line.

This is perhaps the biggest leak for a major tentpole release in
recent memory. Leaving aside the well-known phenomenon of
Oscar screener leaks, workprint leaks have certainly happened
in the past. For example, Eli Roth’s Hostel
2 leaked onto the internet several weeks before its
release (in that situation,
Roth was furious and blamed the leak for the film’s weak box
office performance). Other
films such as
Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Michael
Moore’s Sicko also experienced similar
issue.

It's likely this early release will have a major impact on
Wolverine's opening weekend box office unless the film
gets amazing reviews, both from critics and those who see the
leaked version, or Fox can either convince people the pirated
copy is missing key scenes or fulfill the impossible task of
erasing every copy.

Drew Mc Weeny at Hitfix writes, "The exact demographic who
would open this movie is savvy enough to have the film on their
hard-drives right now if they want it. And if they hate
what they see, I can't imagine they're going to pay to see it
again when it opens."